B:III evidence for evolution (which is just a theory)

Having trouble with your eyes? Well, then, let me have a look at it, because I have read stuff about eyes. I'll be prescribing glasses. Contact lenses don't work, because I don't understand how they can be made, so don't wear those. Got worms in your eyeball? Let me get a knife...

Sounds preposterous? Well, not when it concerns evolution, apparently. In Archives of Ophthalmology an ophthalmologist from Florida, William Smiddy, thinks he has the expertise to do to evolutionary theory pretty much what I did above to ophthalmology.

Here's an outline of his letter:

Darwin quote-mining.

Probabilities, neglecting selection, assuming the eye is an accident.

"Consider that the eye..." is really complex.

"And where did X come from?" (Here, X = the chiasm.)

Haeckel's drawings.

An analysis of rhodopsin molecule’s homology

The fruit fly is still a fruit fly.

More Darwin quote-mining.

I'm not sure what he means by an analysis of rhodopsin homology; space didn't permit him to discuss points 5-7. But apart from that it's all very familiar creationist diatribe. It's nonsense.

From the first paragraph:

It is appropriate to commemorate the Darwin anniversary; his life’s work merits recognition regardless of one’s ideology, and an ophthalmology theme makes for interesting copy. However, lost in the platitudes is the fact that evolution is still but a theory, not an experimentally verifiable fact. There is no more than B:III evidence for the theory of evolution (ie, there have been no clinical trials, randomized or not, confirming the theory; rather, respected authorities have concluded its parts and, at best, there are case-control series that have been extrapolated to its conclusion) despite pervasive, frequent, and dogmatic proclamations to the contrary.

I didn't know what B:III evidence means, but I found out it is standard used in the medical literature for evaluating evidence:

Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy (SORT): A Patient-Centered Approach to Grading Evidence in the Medical Literature in American Family Physician

A-level recommendation is based on consistent and good-quality patient-oriented evidence

B-level recommendation is based on inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence

C-level recommendation is based on consensus, usual practice, opinion, disease-oriented evidence, or case series for studies of diagnosis, treatment, prevention, or screening

Pleiotropy comes from the Greek πλείων pleion, meaning "more", and τρέπειν trepein, meaning "to turn, to convert". It designates the occurrence of a single gene affecting multiple traits, and is a hugely important concept in evolutionary biology.

I'm a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara.

All Many aspects of evolution interest me, but my research focus is currently on microbial evolution, adaptive radiation, speciation, fitness landscapes, epistasis, and the influence of genetic architecture on adaptation and speciation.